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The instinct—a force that, by definition, cannot be controlled—had overtaken him only once, long enough ago that he'd rather not remember it. But back then, he had felt an enormous guilt that his body was not obeying him, acting purely according to the principles of nature. He never allowed that to happen again, even though he gave up inhibitors. Afterwards, he simply calculated his own cycle meticulously, enduring it—painfully but alone—yet safely for himself and those around him. No more surprises. If nature wants to take control, he yields it in such a way that he doesn't lose himself.
But there was something he had failed to notice.
His relationship with Wenlang was slowly, languidly but surely improving, overcoming the barriers of misunderstanding, lies, and hurt. There was much they needed to discuss, and that's what they spent their evenings doing after putting hyperactive Lele to bed. The child had bonded surprisingly quickly with his so-unexpectedly-appeared father. Gao Tu noted that they were even alike. More than he had anticipated. Not only in appearance, but in their inner core—stubbornness mixed with wild emotionality. At that moment, it even frightened him; after all, the inner fear of being left alone hadn't gone anywhere. But the voice of reason persistently told him that the past should be let go. Wenlang was here, after so many years. And he was persistent. One would have to be mad to walk away after that. And Gao Tu no longer planned to run. Not now.
Perhaps this was the first warning sign. He had stopped thinking of the threat as something truly real. The nightmares hadn't disappeared, but the anxious feeling that had haunted him for years before stopped flickering even in the background. It simply dissolved into an unknown sense of certainty.
The second warning sign was Lele, laughing so cheerfully next to Shen. Six months ago, Gao Tu had been guided by an excessive protectiveness that sometimes crossed into something hyper. Now it had become easier. The presence of an alpha beside him allowed him to turn a blind eye to some things, lowering the accident-waiting-to-happen mode by a few percent. And although he still didn't have much faith in Wenlang's fatherly talents, denying his efforts was useless.
This was the third warning sign. He had stopped seeing help as charity, and accepting it as weakness. He allowed himself to make concessions, letting another person solve his problems. Now it felt like something natural. Isn't that how it should be—that in a family, everyone helps each other…
Family… Acknowledging their union as a family had been the final step. He still didn't allow too much, didn't give in to physical contact, but deep in his soul he knew that all this was just stubbornness, born of a painful past. Now they were building a very real present, threatening to turn into that very future he had dreamed of so much, never hoping to ever reach it. Wenlang tried to be sensitive, understanding, and caring to the point of madness. An exemplary partner. The kind that began to elicit a response not only from his brain, but from his body.
Unconsciously. He didn't even realize when it started.
For many long years, he had killed the omega inside himself, ultimately knowing little about the peculiarities of his own body, which had been poisoned by a huge amount of inhibitors. He was still struggling with the consequences of taking them, completely rejecting the possibility of even the slightest interference of instincts in his life. But his recovering body had begun to throw him into confusion and highly provocative situations.
First, he found himself staring at Wenlang's towel in his own bathroom. Shen had stubbornly started moving into his apartment, leaving behind his essentials. It had become a familiar background—annoying at first, but now evoking nothing but indifference. And a slight, barely explainable interest. In a strange impulse, Gao Tu buried his nose in the terry cloth, inhaling the scent of menthol shampoo and the rich smell of pheromones. The cool, sweetish iris was somehow intoxicating, alluring. No matter how Gao Tu fought himself, the desire to feel it on his skin grew clearer by the day, accompanied by a faint itch. But catching himself in the act of what he was doing, Gao Tu recoiled, covering his mouth with his hand, horrified by the realization, as if he'd been caught doing something very indecent.
Then this strange urge to bury his nose in someone else's belonging overtook him in the bedroom a couple of days later, when he attempted to sort out the shelves of the closet. Shen had long been allocated a specific one, and on it reigned eternal chaos. The alpha was completely incapable of tidying up after himself, hopelessly shoving his pajama pants and a couple of T-shirts into the depths of the closet in useless clumps.
Gao Tu didn't immediately understand how a simple cleaning session—grumbling at the mess—had turned into a momentary stupor with someone else's pajamas in his hands. He audibly inhaled through his nose, feeling a wave of hot tranquility spread through his body, as if the pheromones remaining on the fabric had completely sealed some crack inside him. This left him utterly baffled. But the real blow came three nights later.
He woke up abruptly, in a cold sweat, completely unaware of what was happening. Tonight, Wenlang hadn't stayed over; he had urgently left for Jianghu for some important council where no one else had the right to make a decision. And at that moment, it began to feel like a betrayal on some deep, animal level… and it was precisely the animal nature of this feeling that frightened him greatly. But this situation only served as a trigger. Leaping out of bed, Gao Tu, as if in a drug-induced delirium, went to the closet and dumped everything Wenlang had left on the shelf. The entire pile quickly ended up on the bed, and Gao Tu—still not understanding what he was doing but certain that it was the right thing—lay down beside it, burying himself in that pile.
In the morning, with horror and total incomprehension of what had happened, he folded everything back. But the next few nights, it all repeated itself. Wenlan's business trip was extended indefinitely, and the scent of his pheromones began to fade away rapidly, making Gao Tu angry on an instinctive level.
And he realized too late which instinct he had succumbed to.
On the calendar, the start date of his cycle began to flash red, and the clothes on the bed were no longer even put away. Moreover, Gao Tu dragged absolutely everything he could find in the apartment onto the bed. Even the cashmere scarf Shen had once forgotten ended up in the center of the pile. It was this scarf that Gao Tu wrapped himself in, burying himself in those clothes as if in a den. Surrounded by iris, he could finally breathe calmly, quelling the heat beginning to spread through his body. Right up until the moment he realized with horror that even this was becoming insufficient. He was missing the alpha, his pheromones, his things. And only thanks to some gods did Shen Wenlan finish his business quite in time.
He returned on the second day of the heat. It was not yet too aggressive, but Gao Qing had already arrived to take Lele to her place for a few days. She was the one who opened the door when Wenlang appeared on the doorstep, nearly crashing into him. Joyful Lele jumped onto his neck, babbling about everything under the sun. Shen, dizzy with longing, hugged his son tightly, but from Gao Qing's gaze, he understood something was wrong. And then Lele himself blurted out in passing:
— Auntie and I are going to her place to visit while Papa is feeling bad.
That hit him like a blow to the head, making him tense up. Fortunately, Xiao Qing shoved him into the apartment without unnecessary questions, taking her nephew with her. And then it all became clear.
A languid, scorching sage scent enveloped the entire apartment, leaving no room for misunderstanding. Wenlang immediately understood what was going on, taking off his shoes and pulling off his outerwear with pure enthusiasm. For some reason, it was terrifying to enter the bedroom, but he pushed open the ajar door and stopped on the threshold.
Gao Tu was burning in the agony of his own instincts, curled up, huddled in the center of… a nest. There was no other word for what Shen saw. A pile of his own clothes on the bed, arranged in chaotic little walls. Gao Tu wore nothing at all—he was hot, unwell, desperately lacking the so-necessary iris, and Wenlang released it unconsciously, making the omega jerk toward the door. And Shen saw how clouded his gaze was, how heavily he was breathing. And he himself felt unwell; he loosened his tie, taking a cautious step toward the bed.
— May I?
He had heard that a nest for omegas was a symbol of safety. It was absolutely forbidden to disturb it arbitrarily. But Gao Tu was too fixated on the need for compatible pheromones, and he pulled him forward by that damned tie himself, giving the green light for everything that followed.
What followed were aggressive attempts to undress, audibly inhaling each gasp of cool iris. Clumsy, burning touches and a sharp, drawn-out moan. Wenlang bit the thin skin above his collarbone, immediately licking the mark. Then lower—excited, attention-demanding breasts. Shen allowed himself to wrap his lips around one areola, squeezing the other between his fingers. Gao Tu jerked as if electrocuted, arching and biting his lip, but it did nothing to muffle the long, high-pitched moan that pleased the alpha's fluffy ego. It was sexy enough to blow all brakes. But what actually blew them faster was Gao Tu himself, pressing his palm against Wenlan's head and guiding him even lower.
The toned, sensitive stomach, the soft sides flowing smoothly into the curve of his hips, the deep C-section scar—Shen kissed every millimeter, reveling in the openness, the permission. Because never before had Gao Tu surrendered so fervently, arching so sexually against all these things that smelled of alpha. The inner beast rejoiced, watching as natural slick dripped down his thick thighs, intoxicating with its own sage. And the fabric of the things beneath him became soaked with it, clearly mixing their pheromones together. Oh, at this rate, it would be Wenlang's turn to gather all of it into a pile and inhale until he was half-fainting. But for now, he took advantage of an even more advantageous position—he ran the tip of his tongue over the pulsing muscles, which opened invitingly in response to every touch.
Gao Tu almost screamed, clamping the alpha's head between his thighs, holding him in place by his hair. Performing his role became more difficult within such confines, but Shen had no intention of pulling away or stopping driving the body beneath him into a frenzy. He had always been sharp-tongued, and that wasn't just about his ability to insult a competitor. He wielded his tongue precisely, teasing, then penetrating inside, stretching the demanding walls. He himself was swimming in overstimulation, but first he would make Gao Tu come with a silent cry from just his tongue, and then he would definitely enter him, sinking his aching cock into that hot core. He would immediately set a sharp, fast pace, unable to endure or tease any longer. They both needed this animal pleasure, which would end in a knot. Because the instincts that Gao Tu had so stubbornly suppressed within himself still prevailed, demanding complete union, feeling unconditional safety. And where there is safety, there is also a wild desire for family and offspring.
The nest was the first stage in establishing a strong instinctive foundation. Then the body demanded a knot—stretching, pressing, shattering into a thousand tiny pieces and putting him back together. Maybe afterward, he would even allow a mark to be placed on him. But that would certainly not be driven by instinct. And clearly only after the next pregnancy test showed two lines.